1865
L.D. COWAN (wooden schooner, 165 tons, built in 1848, at Erie, Pennsylvania) was driven ashore near Pointe aux Barques, Michigan, in a storm and wrecked.
1875
The wooden schooner CLARA BELL of Sandusky was wrecked in a gale off Leamington, Ontario. Captain William Robinson was drowned.
1896
W. LE BARON JENNEY (steel tow barge, 366 foot, 3422 gross tons) was launched by F. W. Wheeler & Company (Hull #120) at West Bay City, Michigan for the Bessemer Steamship Company of Cleveland, Ohio. She went through eight owners during her career, ending with the Goderich Elevator and Transit Company, Ltd. who used her as a grain storage barge under the name K.A. Powell. She was scrapped in Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1974.
1909
AURANIA was the only steel hulled ship sunk by ice on the Great Lakes. The vessel was lost in Whitefish Bay after being holed and then squeezed by the pressure of the ice pack near Parisienne Island. The crew escaped onto the ice and pulled a yawl boat to the J.H. BARTOW.
1952
W.E. FITZGERALD hit the Burlington Lift Bridge at the entrance to Hamilton Bay after a mechanical problem resulted in the structure not being raised. The north span of the bridge was knocked into the water, resulting in traffic chaos on land and on the water.
1959
PRESCOTT went aground near Valleyfield, Quebec, while downbound in the Seaway only four days after the waterway had been opened. It got stuck trying to avoid a bridge that had failed to open and navigation was blocked until the CSL bulk carrier was refloated the next day.
1969
HOWARD HINDMAN ran aground at the Little Rapids Cut in the St. Marys River after the steering cables parted. The ship was released and temporarily returned to service but the vessel was badly damaged and soon sold for scrap. It came down the Welland Canal with a cargo of road salt on June 6, 1969, and was towed to Bilbao, Spain, with the HUMBERDOC, arriving on September 6, 1969.
1971
A fender boom fell on the pilothouse of the steamer GEORGE M. HUMPHREY in the Poe Lock at the Soo in 1971.
1975
American Steamship’s SAM LAUD entered service.
1976
The a.) SOODOC (Hull#210) was launched by Collingwood Shipyards Ltd. Renamed b.) AMELIA DESGAGNES in 1990.
1976
The British freighter GLENPARK was three years old when it first came through the Seaway in 1959. It was sailing as c) GOLDEN LEADER when it ran aground off Goto Island, southwest Japan while on a long voyage from Chungjin, China, to Constanza, Romania. The hull broke in two and was a total loss.
1977
While inbound at Lorain, the IRVING S. OLDS hit a bridge on the Black River, which extensively damaged her bow, tying up traffic for several hours.
1998
The Panamanian freighter DENEBOLA first visited the Seaway in 1973. The ship was sailing as d) TAE CHON, under the flag of North Korea, when it was in a collision with the YANG LIN in thick fog on the Yellow Sea and sank. The vessel was enroute from Yantai, China, to Chittagong, Bangladesh, when the accident occurred and one life was lost.
2020
The incorrect installation of a single set screw led to the loss of propulsion control on the Canadian-flagged, 736-foot-long ATLANTIC HURON, causing the ship to strike a pier at 6.8 knots. The National Transportation Safety Board issued Marine Accident Brief 21/10 on the July 5, 2020, contact between the self-unloading bulk carrier and a pier associated with the Soo Locks, in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, resulting in $2.2 million in damage. There were no injuries.
Contributors & Sources
Skip Gillham, Jody Aho, Joe Barr, Dave Swayze, Father Dowling Collection, Ahoy & Farewell II, and the Great Lakes Ships We Remember series from the Marine Historical Society of Detroit.
Compiled & Maintained by Roger LeLievre
